American agriculture has produced an abundant supply of food and fiber at low direct cost to consumers. But environmental concerns., energy shortages, health considerations and other constraints are causing concern as to whether sufficient food commodities can be produced to meet U.S. requirements and at the same time continue expanding exports. To provide public decisionmakers with information with respect to this and other major uncertainties about the future of the U.S. food and fiber system, the Economic Research Service is devoting renewed attention to its Economic Projections Program. Part of this attention is in developing the National-Interregional Agricultural Projections (NIRLP) System. This paper relates to those NIR!\..P components used to project domestic food use and more specifically per capita consumption of major food commodities.